AP PA Headlines 5/20/20
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Real estate sales and related activity can resume across Pennsylvania if guidelines designed to limit infection are followed. Gov. Tom Wolf announced Tuesday new guidance that says people in the real estate industry can get back to work as long as they all wear masks or other facial coverings, and use separate vehicles to drive to visit properties. Business that’s conducted in person must be scheduled ahead of time and limited to no more than the real estate worker and two people inside a property at a time. Pennsylvania reported fewer than 1,000 new coronavirus infections for a ninth consecutive day Tuesday.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Nearly 50 Pennsylvania nursing homes have reported 20 or more deaths related to COVID-19. That’s according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the state Department of Health. Nursing homes and personal care homes have struggled for months to contain the virus, with residents of the facilities accounting for more than two-thirds of the state’s overall death toll of 4,624. The state’s worst nursing home outbreak is at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Beaver County, near the Ohio border, where 358 residents and 25 workers have contracted the virus. Brighton has reported 76 deaths.
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s mental health care system is struggling to continue treating patients in spite of the coronavirus. Even before the pandemic, access to mental health services in the U.S. could be difficult, including for people with insurance. Now experts fear COVID-19 will make the situation worse. The restrictions designed to curb infections could put the patients who are most in need at risk of falling through the cracks and inflict on countless others newfound grief, anxiety and depression. Social-distancing orders are straining access to care across income levels as therapists and patients scramble to adjust.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A grade for the health of the Chesapeake Bay has dropped from a C to a C-minus in the last year in an annual report. The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science released its annual report card on the nation’s largest estuary Tuesday. For the first time in its 14-year history, the report also scored the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which received a B-minus grade. It was the second year in a row the bay’s health dropped in the report. However, the report says all
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — With the Memorial Day holiday weekend approaching, Gov. Tom Wolf is questioning the wisdom of beach-going, even as governors in other states reopen their beaches despite worries that the coronavirus outbreak could surge again. Beaches up and down the East Coast will be open this weekend, albeit with social-distance guidance coming from state and local officials. Wolf, however, took a dim view Monday of beach-going while the virus is spreading. He said he wouldn’t go to the beach and that he’s not sure why the governors of Maryland and New Jersey opened their beaches. Governors in New York and Delaware are also reopening beaches.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is emphatically defending himself against criticism from medical experts that his announced use of a malaria drug against the coronavirus could spark wide misuse by Americans. The drug, hydroxychloroquine, has potentially fatal side effects, and the government says it should not be tried against COVID-19 outside research or hospital settings. But the White House says doctors can write prescriptions for the drug, and Trump declared on Tuesday, “This is an individual decision to make.” He said, without evidence, that a study of veterans showing possible negative effects was an “enemy statement” meant to embarrass him.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican political operatives are recruiting what are described as “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by public health experts to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call that included GOP-aligned groups and a Trump campaign staffer. A leaked recording of the hourlong call was provided to The Associated Press. A Trump campaign spokesman confirmed an effort to recruit doctors to publicly support the president is underway, but declined to say when the initiative would be rolled out.
OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) — Diners in a Maryland beach town are bouncing back into dining out with a little help from inflatable inner tubes on wheels. The Baltimore-based company Revolution Event Design & Production rolled out “bumper tables” that allow people to keep 6 feet from each other while eating and talking in social settings amid the coronavirus pandemic. News outlets report the inflated tube tables debuted at Fish Tales in Ocean City, Maryland, on Saturday. The devices feature a hole in the middle for participants and wheels attached to the bottom for moving around. The company’s CEO says the tables are a fun way to maintain distance and still enjoy social settings.
HEBER CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah state trooper has helped a pair of newborn moose calves reunite safely with their mother. Sgt. Nick Street says the trooper noticed the hours-old calves on the road without their mother on his way home from work Monday. Worried they could be hit by a car, trooper Alexander Agin stopped and put up a traffic barrier. He then guided them away from traffic danger. Just as he led them off the pavement, the calves’ mother arrived and began to charge the trooper. He scrambled back into the car and watched as they walked back into the woods.
NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Lauer says author Ronan Farrow engaged in shoddy and biased journalism in his book, “Catch and Kill.” The fired “Today” show co-host wrote an online column accusing Farrow of failing to do due diligence on a claim that Lauer raped an NBC co-worker. Farrow says it’s Lauer who’s wrong. Farrow won a Pulitzer Prize for investigating claims made in the #MeToo movement. Earlier this week, The New York Times suggested he had cut corners in vetting his work. And in an essay on Mediaite, Lauer piled on, saying Farrow didn’t thoroughly investigate the rape allegation against him. Meanwhile, Farrow’s publisher says it stands by its vetting — and Farrow’s work.
DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. has told the White House it requires everyone in its factories to wear face masks to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, but it’s not clear whether President Donald Trump will wear one when he visits a Detroit-area plant tomorrow. Trump, who is to tour a factory repurposed to make medical breathing machines near Detroit, has habitually refused to wear a mask at the White House and in recent public appearances.
In a statement, Ford said its policy requires everyone in factories to wear personal protective equipment, including masks, and that policy had been shared with the White House. When asked if the company would require Trump to wear the equipment, spokeswoman Rachel McCleery said, “The White House has its own safety and testing policies in place and will make its own determination.” Not wearing a mask and even making the visit itself could violate coronavirus restrictions ordered by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been at odds with Trump.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Barbers plan to offer free haircuts on the Michigan Capitol lawn today to protest the state’s stay-at-home orders, a defiant demonstration that reflects how salons have become a symbol for small businesses eager to reopen two months after the pandemic began. Third-generation hairdresser Scott Weaver, who owns five salons across Michigan, said his “forgotten industry” is getting much-needed attention after being initially dismissed as “just hair.”
Barbershops, salons and spas stand at the forefront of small businesses that want to reopen despite the risks of their services, which require employees to be in close contact with customers. The coronavirus has contributed to more than 5,000 confirmed deaths in Michigan, the fourth-highest toll in the country. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s closure of nonessential businesses is among the nation’s toughest and is in effect at least through May 28.
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a salvage firm can retrieve the Marconi wireless telegraph machine that broadcast distress calls from the sinking Titanic ocean liner. In an order released Monday, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith agreed that the telegraph is historically and culturally important and could soon be lost within the rapidly decaying wreck site. Smith writes that recovering the telegraph “will contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking.”
Smith is the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters from a federal court in Norfolk. Her ruling modifies a previous judge’s order from 2000 that forbids cutting into the shipwreck or detaching any part of it. Smith’s order is a big win for RMS Titanic Inc., the court-recognized steward of Titanic’s artifacts. The firm recently emerged from bankruptcy and is under new ownership. The Titanic had been traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.
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